"Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up" - Hey, who knew that less efficient, more expensive ways of making fuel from foodstuffs wasn't going to pan out?

Investors suffer as US ethanol boom dries up

By Kevin Allison in San Francisco and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Published: October 21 2008 23:22 | Last updated: October 21 2008 23:22

Investors, such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, are sitting on billions of dollars in losses after buying into the corn-based ethanol industry that George W. Bush embraced as the ans wer to US energy woes.

Six of the biggest publicly traded US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a 2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel with petrol.  (source)

Who could have seen this coming?